Travel Guide Pompiac

At the top of its plateau, the village of Pompiac, 199 inhabitants, takes its name from Pompius, rich owner of a Gallo-Roman villa built on the site. At the time, Pompiac seems to have been a vast agricultural domain which extended as far as the lands of the commune of Labastide-Savès and tradition attributes to the Romans the old road linking Samatan to the Périgué as well as the bridge allowing the crossing of the Boulouze. The current commune, spread over 1,000 ha, is the result of the regrouping in 1790 of two communities. One had developed in the Middle Ages around a Benedictine priory which depended on the Abbey of Lombez, with a church dedicated to Our Lady. The whole complex sits on a mound surrounded by its cemetery. This priory, secularized in 1510, gradually lost interest and disappeared during the Revolution. In the 18th century, the church of the priory became a parish church. It is the present church with its beautiful four-arched entrance portal from the 14th century, heavily reworked in the 19th century and its bell tower-wall with five bells. Two ancient sarcophagi were found near the church. The other community had settled down below the mound, on the site of the present school with the church dedicated to Saint-Padulphe. In 1700, it lost its status as a parish church given to the church of the former priory. Becoming a simple chapel, it was finally demolished in 1795 and the former priory church now takes Saint Pardulphe as its protector. In the centre of the village, there is a wrought iron cross on a brick pedestal that forms a small oratory to the Virgin. Beautiful view of the Pyrenees at the foot of the water tower